Proposal Development Workshops (PDWs) are webinars on key milestones along the funding and proposal development journey. Presenters provide best practice and ASU-specific insight across all facets of proposal development. Starting with understanding the funding landscape, finding a solicitation, developing a proposal, and preparing a budget, each webinar is a quick look at best practices.
These sessions are appropriate to all stages of research from any discipline for any sponsor.
PDW’s are held approximately every other week at 11am AZ through the academic year. Sponsored by KE Research Development.
Research Landscape and Strategy - Sept. 3, 2024 In this session, Research Development will detail how faculty can develop a strategic approach to pursuing research funding. Attendees will gain an understanding of: (1) strategic intelligence and how it can assist them in understanding their sponsor, program, and competition. With a refined understanding of these concepts, faculty will be able to craft a research strategy that puts them one step ahead of their competition! These sessions are appropriate to all stages of research from any discipline for any sponsor.
On the Horizon: Everything before the funding opportunity - Sept. 17, 2024 This session describes how faculty can better position themselves for funding success before a funding solicitation is published; it answers the question, "Where did that proposal come from?” The PDW will present a brief overview of the federal budget process and pre-RFP engagement across different research agencies, how funds are allocated, and effective communication with funders. The session will describe how to find key strategy documents, the importance of conferences and workshop participation, participating in agency committees and decision-making processes, and creating impactful elevator pitches and project briefs.
Finding Funding Opportunities- Oct. 1, 2024 Do you have a great idea but need funding to make your idea a reality? Look no further than our Finding Funding Opportunities workshop. We will explore different resources that are available to research and find open opportunities for funding by both federal and philanthropic granting agencies. Funding searches can be conducted in a variety of ways, so we will talk about some tips and tricks to help maximize your time searching for funding. During this workshop, we will take a live tour of the Foundation Directory Online as well as the Pivot Funding Search Tool. Both can help make what may seem like a daunting task of sifting through potential funders and endless open opportunities much more manageable.
Creating a Responsive Grant Proposal - Oct. 15, 2024 A program you’ve been waiting for has just released a call for proposals and the due date is in three months–now what? Don’t let a blank page deter you from getting organized and ready to craft your response! With the sponsor’s call for proposals, you already have the answers to many of the questions you are being asked to address. Do you want to write faster, with sharper focus, and increase your chances of being funded? If so, then join as we 1) discuss a proposal construction technique that will help you better understand what the sponsor wants, 2) learn how to increase responsiveness in your written submission,3) make it easier for reviewers to navigate and assess your proposal, and 4) reduce the chances of proposal rejection due to non-compliance.
Persuasive Proposal Writing - Oct. 29, 2024 Staring at a blank page can be overwhelming and intimidating. Reading text that is dry and not engaging is worse! There are a host of small tweaks to our writing that can change dry text to more persuasive text. There are also some major structural text changes you can make so that the reader is instantly engaged and encouraged to read on, specifically, the concepts of “benefit statements” and “win themes”. This webinar will introduce you to easy and more complicated approaches to persuasive text. Attend this webinar if you are interested in learning more about how to frame your proposal narrative if you’ve never written a proposal before, or if you are interested in revising your existing proposal text to make it more persuasive.
Editing Your Proposal, Part 1 (logic and clarity) - Nov. 12, 2024 You are very close to your area of research and your understanding of it may run deeper than that of some of your proposal reviewers, individuals that are not doing research in your specific area. An editing team can help identify elements of your proposal that might not be clear to these reviewers, even if they are clear in your mind. Attend this session and learn about problems the RD editing team sees with fundamental elements of the academic presentation, for example, how the hypothesis is phrased and the nature of methods and design. Attend this session and learn how you can ensure that the academic content of your proposal is logical, coherent, and clearly presented.
Editing Your Proposal, Part 2 (grammar and wording) - Nov. 26, 2024 You’ve finished writing your proposal, but before you submit, there is one more crucial step – editing. Don’t let wording or grammar or illogical presentation of academic content distract your reviewers. Attend this workshop to learn about common problems with wording and grammar and how to avoid them. You will learn how to use tools such as Styles in Microsoft Word and readability statistics to help you present you text more correctly and effectively. You will also learn about some common problems with fundamental aspects of academic content, such as how the hypothesis is posed or how the study is designed.
Proposal Graphics: Planning and Navigating for Success - Dec. 10, 2024 Are you intimidated by graphics? Do you lack creative flair? Let’s learn the importance of leveraging graphics for impactful proposals. Applying some basic principles of design which are balance, contrast, hierarchy, and color will result in a cohesive visually appealing proposal. Attend this webinar if you’re interested in learning more about how to successfully execute a proposal with clean-cut innovative graphics.
Budgeting for Proposals - Jan. 7, 2025 Submitting a budget mismatched to your proposed project may be disastrous and significantly impact your award probability. This session provides strategies for creating a budget that aligns with your project whether with a single or multiple investigators. Session participants will learn who to turn to for assistance, the common federal budget categories, creating a budget planning timeline, how to write a budget justification, and other budget considerations to create a solid budget and increase your award probability.
You Need Supplementary Documents More Than They Need You - Jan. 21, 2025 Attend this webinar to unlock the secrets of effective supplementary or ancillary documents. These documents should not be considered laborious, unscored “must haves”. Instead, think of them as extensions of your research plan. This session will walk through the data management plan as an exemplar of an “enhanced” supplementary document. By leveraging the many resources at ASU, all of the extra documents can be bolstered to tell a more compelling (and competitive) story for your funding. You’ll understand that these hidden gems can be clear differentiators.
Crafting Evaluation Plans - Feb. 4, 2025 How do you know what you are doing is successful? You measure it! Integrating evaluation across proposals increases the strength of your plan and provides the sponsor assurances that you know what you are doing. While program evaluation activities are very specific, this session can introduce you to fundamentals of evaluation plans. Examples of best practices and sponsor specific requirements will be reviewed. Participants will feel empowered to identify ways to evaluate their proposed efforts.
